And so I Drown Again
by Psycho gurl
Summary: PG-13 'cause it's kindabarely shounen ai-ish. Hiro helps Shuichi deal after Yuki leaves him to New York, but finds he hurts himself in doing so. Always living in pain to save another, Hiro wonders about the other side of savior, and how things came to be.


Disclaimers: Gravitation belongs to lucky people with money that wouldn't have to be happy about having enough money to buy a Gravitation DVD...they'd already own it...  
  
Warnings: Umm...I guess mild MILD Hiro+Shuichi on Hiro's part, but it's mostly just a look into Hiro's mind.  
  
Notes: Takes place during episode 12. Between when Yuki leaves and the Bad Luck concert.  
/thoughts/  
  
~*And So I Drown Again*~  
  
"It's...been a while, hasn't it?" I ask as I sat down next to him, setting the can in front of him, watching as beautiful fingers reached out and grab it, resting there and doing nothing else. I resist the urge to touch him, to try and comfort him. He won't even look at me as I talk to him.  
  
"Yeah, it has," he answers easily. I can't see his face, but I know it betrays his voice. His perfect, emotionless, uncaring voice, none of it fools me. As if he couldn't care. I've been watching him count the days since Yuki left him, I watch him pace around my house at night whenever he stays over. He doesn't know it but I've seen the tears that slide down his face as he sleeps, hear him call Yuki's name in his sleep, and watch as it only makes him cry harder. I don't know which hurts me more, that Shuichi calls his name, or that I couldn't save him from this pain like I always have before. I can't stand the thought that I've let him down. I didn't deserve to call myself his best friend anymore.  
  
I was about to speak again, to break the silence that had covered us when he spoke again, startling me. "Hiro?" I freeze suddenly. He's looking up at me now, violet eyes pleading. I hate it when he does that to me. There isn't a thing I can deny him when he looks at me like that. I'd lay the world at his feet, kill one hundred people if it would take the pleading look from those eyes and make him smile again. Make them shine that bright color.  
  
"What?" I ask softly, still staring at him. I don't move, just wait. I know he wants something from me, and I know he's struggling to ask. He's never done that before. He isn't selfish, but he isn't afraid to ask for what he wants, either. For someone who could have everything he wanted with a simple request, I was surprised by how little he asked of us all. I was sure even Yuki was forced to give into the look in his eyes sometimes.  
  
"I know...that it hasn't been THAT long since Yuki left me...and I know that you're with Ayaka, but..." My eyes widen slightly as he stands up suddenly and turns around, walking over to the kitchen doorway and standing there, finger sliding up and down on the open doorframe. I don't see the point in putting a door there. No door would stop Shuichi from free food. "Do you think...we could...?" There's an even more uncomfortable silence as he stands there, finger ceasing in its motions. This is the first time I've ever heard him so...pleading before. So desperate. I think he knows what he does to people, and I think he uses it to his advantage sometimes. "I...I want what you offered me back in high school. I...I want to go out with you," he finally manages, finger dropping from the doorframe as he continues to stand there, not looking at me. There was no way he was being serious...  
  
"No you don't." He doesn't. We both know it. He may want me to think that he does, but I'm not that stupid. I don't play pretend; I don't ignore anything when it comes to Shuichi. Shuichi wants to stop himself from thinking about it; I know this trick well...  
  
"I do! I'm not lying to you! I wouldn't lie to my best friend like that, Hiro!" His large violet eyes are watching me intensely from where he continues to stand in the doorframe, facing me now. Tears are hanging in the corner of his eyes as he glares at me, almost challenging me to prove him wrong. I stand and grab the earlier discarded drink, walking up to him and placing it in his hands gently.  
  
"Even if you weren't lying, it couldn't happen Shuichi. You don't love me, yo..."  
  
"I do! I really do, Hiro! I SWEAR it! I'm not lying to you! I don't know when I started loving you, but I do! I SWEAR!" He's crying now, and I reach out a hand to brush bangs back from his tear-slicked eyelashes, leaving the tears where they slid down his face, unopposed. Stopping someone's tears only hurts them more. Someone like Shuichi needs the reprieve from sadness every once in a while.  
  
"You lie to yourself too much. This isn't what you want. You want to find Yuki, everyone knows that. You want Yuki to appear and making everything all right again. You want to go home and find him sitting on that couch and smoking a cigarette, laptop on that coffee table of his. We all can see it in your eyes when you talk about him, Shuichi. You want things back the way they were, the only part I play in that is as a friend and band mate. Things are better off that way, anyway." Shuichi's eyes widened before narrowing again, sending more tears down his face. I should have known that would piss him off. It was the truth, everyone was aware of it, but Shuichi didn't like it when people made him look stupid.  
  
"I don't lie to anyone! Yes! I want Yuki back more than ANYTHING but Yuki isn't COMING back! I'm not stupid! I'm not completely hopeless, Hiro! I can take a hint! Yes, I'll wait for Yuki to come back until the day I die, it's a part of me! That doesn't mean I don't WANT to move on! That doesn't mean I'm lying about this!" Shuichi was practically sobbing by now, but his pride wouldn't let him. Instead he just glared at me and tried to force his point across.  
  
I close my eyes tightly and try not to cry as he screamed at me. Those were things I never wanted to hear from Shuichi. I've known since the day he met that damn writer that they were all true, but still. To hear them...it hurt. I wanted those words to be for me. I'd always wanted those words for myself, and I'd readily admit that I was jealous as hell of that asshole writer he was seeing. However, no matter how much I hated him they were good together, and as Shuichi's friend I couldn't be selfish and pull him away from what made them both so happy.  
  
Shuichi's known that I've loved him since we were both 16. He told me then that it was just a crush and I'd get over it eventually, and I think I believed him for a while back then. After that we both tried to ignore it, and Shuichi even tried getting me to like some of the girls around school, hooking me up with girl after girl. For some reason, though, I just couldn't get over him rejecting me. I'm almost 20 now and I STILL love him. I know it, he knows it, and even that asshole Yuki Eiri knows it. I never would have thought such a simple little crush could last so long, and hurt so very very much. I never would have imagined I'd let him hurt me so must.  
  
"Moving on...takes longer than that," I offered him softly, raising the drink to his lips, running my thumbs over his fingers gently as I hold it there. "Hurry up and drink that before you ruin your voice. Sakano will throw a fit if you can't sing tomorrow." With that I let go and walk past him to grab my guitar. I needed to keep myself occupied, anything to keep from thinking about him. I can't argue with Shuichi, not over something like this. I still don't think I'm over him, and yet he wants me to believe that he's over Yuki already. I don't believe it for a minute, and I don't think he really does, either. I think he's forgotten that he's talking to someone who's gone through it before, someone who was STILL going through it. He's so emotional when it comes to these sorts of things; he never bothers to think these things through.  
  
"Sakano would throw a fit anyways," he offers me in return, drinking the entire can in one gulp, slamming it down on the table next to me when he's done. "Don't change the subject on me. Please Hiro. I know you still love me, I'm not as stupid as everyone thinks I am. I swear on everything I ever had with Yuki and everything I ever want with him that I truly love you. Yes, I love Yuki, too, but Yuki's gone, and even if he wanted to come back to me he wouldn't. I know Tohma, Mika, everyone who cares about him wouldn't let him. I...I don't think I'd let him. I make him so miserable, I don't want to do that to him." I set down my guitar and slide to sit on the floor with him as he crumbles, sobbing into his hands.  
  
"There's nothing wrong with you Shuichi. Nothing. No matter what Yuki tells you," I comfort softly, taking him into my arms and letting him cry against my shoulder. No one had done something like that for me in so very long, and I was aware of how much I myself longed for it. Shuichi would never know how many times I'd held back my own tears so he wouldn't end up even more upset.  
  
"I...I hurt Yuki. That's why he left. I hurt him, Hiro. I don't want to hurt the people I love anymore. Please, you understand me, I understand you. We've been friends forever. It would be so much harder for us to get hurt like this." I sigh and sit him up; knowing what I'm about to do is going to destroy us both.  
  
"Once, okay? One kiss, is that alright with you?" /One kiss, to show you I care. One kiss to kill every dream I ever had./ Shuichi's eyes brighten slightly and he wraps his arms around my neck tightly, hugging me and nodding. I don't think he knows how much this is going to hurt us both. I can only hope it won't ruin the friendship we've had for so very long now.  
  
I push him away from me gently and cover his mouth with my own. I'm normally gentle, overly sweet with him, but this time I'm not. I crush my lips against his hard, opening my mouth for his tongue but taking the opening for myself, forcing my tongue against his and into his own mouth. He's shaking now, and I know with every second I'm destroying the one chance he gave me at real happiness. This is what I've wanted for so long now, and I was throwing it all away. But then again, what kind of happiness would that be? Knowing that I was only there as a replacement for Yuki...I think that would be more of a nightmare for me.  
  
"Stop!" It's over now, and Shuichi is staring at me with wide, hurt eyes. He's sobbing now, face buried in my chest, and I hold him tightly. He talks too much sometimes. I know of every little thing that makes him think of Yuki. I did it not for myself, not for the satisfaction of getting one kiss from the person I desire most, but once again for him. He wouldn't be happy with me, either, and I know it. Yuki will come back to him one day; we all know it deep down. I think he's the only one who's stopped believing that he will.  
  
"Why?" His sobbing breaks me out of my own thoughts and I run fingers through his hair gently. I've done this for him since before I can remember. Since we were kids on the playground and he scraped his knee, or the other kids laughed at him because he'd pretend the top of the jungle gym was a stage and sing into his pretend microphone. I'd always been there to comfort him, always. That was my role in his life, and I wouldn't want it any other way. All I really want in this life is to be able to make him smile when he's upset. "I really do love you Hiro, it's just I...I can't..."  
  
"It's not the right kind of love for a relationship, Shuichi. I don't doubt you love me, I wouldn't doubt anything you told me. But you love your mother and your sister as well, don't you? I think that's more of what I mean to you." For a few short seconds Shuichi's crying stops before starting back up again, fingers clenching my shirt tightly.  
  
He cries, I comfort him. It's a familiar routine by now.  
  
I let him drown me in his tears and sorrows, weighed down by my own...those which will always remain unshed, that way I can continue to hold him up and watch him live on happily. I'd give anything to make him happy.  
  
"But what kind on life is it, to know you live by letting someone else take the pain for you?"  
  
"Lonely...and sad...like you're nothing but...a burden..." Shuichi whispered, soft and muffled enough that I could barely hear him. I hadn't meant to speak aloud, but I had. Worse yet, Shuichi had heard me. The one thing I'd tried so very hard to save Shuichi from, I'd screwed up. I just couldn't seem to do anything right these days.  
  
"Never a burden, Shuichi. I'll always be here for you when you need someone to turn to, to get rid of your sorrows."  
  
/Staying near you and hurting myself, or running away and letting you drown in agony...  
  
I think I'd rather drown a second time./  
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Random blurbs of Hiro angst, gotta love them. I hope you like it, I wrote it really quickly but I'm proud of how it came out. I dunno, I just have this absolute adoration of unrequited love in fanfics. Hiro is my baby doll when it comes to these sorts of things.


End file.
